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Wednesday 27 September 2017

Marc Cardinal Ouellet warns against "alarmist" interpretations of Amoris Laetitia and its obvious heresy - move along folks, nothing to see here!

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, says the Pope’s 2016 apostolic exhortation on the family must not be misinterpreted as a break with Church tradition.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet spoke yesterday at the annual plenary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). and addressed before his fellow bishops, Amoris Laetitia. Clearly concerned about the Correctio Filialis, Canada's former Primate warned against "alarmist interpretations" of the document.

With all due respect to the good Cardinal, a man who was reportedly nearly elected instead of the Argentine Peronist, he needs to get his head of the sand and be honest with his brother bishops and the faithful. 

The Catholic Register reports that the Cardinal said:
"Any alarmist interpretation" that says the document is "a break with tradition," or a "permissive interpretation that celebrates access to the sacraments" for the divorced and remarried is "unfaithful to the text and to the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff."
Alarmist? Is he serious?

The Argentine bishops interpreted Amoris Laetitia in the most "permissive interpretation" to which Pope Bergoglio responded in writing, "there is no other interpretation." Yet, Ouellet conveniently ignored this fact. Nowhere, did the good Cardinal challenge the heretical interpretations of the bishops in Malta to say nothing of the egregious actions there against faithful priests. I cite but two examples, readers here know of many more.

Cardinal Ouellet is acting cowardly, fearfully. He might have been elected pope as a moderate alternative to Bergoglio but by his own admission, he fought it off. He is a weak man. He has failed as an apostle and he has mislead his brothers asking them to put their heads in the sand right along with him. 

He has blatantly ignored the heresies, or at least the heretical interpretation in various places but has no hesitation in accusing those who see these heresies clearly, as being "alarmist." To Ouellet and his ilk, the emperor is well dressed, well at least as well dressed as Bergoglio can be in polyester.

The time has now come, if it is not long since passed, for the two remaining Dubia Cardinals to gather other like thinking bishops and cardinals in conference to denounce the obvious heresies and call upon the Bishop of Rome to respond publicly or be guilty of heresy himself.

Marc Ouellet and the rest of our bishops and priests are filled with fear. They may agree that Amoris Laetitia is heretical and the Bishop of Rome is himself, a heretic. Yet, they sit and do nothing. They think they have faith. They have fear.

Father John Hunwicke, a signor of the Correctio Filialis, is not a man with fear and he has something to say about it.
Fear is quite beautiful, isn't it, as a Satanic operational strategy? The Enemy disseminates Fear. He fills good honest men with guilt because they feel too fearful to do what they know they should do. And then, when the Correctio is published, his ministers sneer as they answer the journalists' questions, and glibly point out how few signatories there are. As Marco Tossati has put it, "Belittle, label, marginalise".http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.ca/2017/09/the-aetiology-and-mechanics-of-fear.html
Without a doubt, those who fail to confront this crisis are doing the work of Satan. They are cowards, weak, effeminate men who will be spat out of His mouth for their lukewarmedness. 

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing....only a few days ago I wondered what has happened to Marc Cardinal Ouellet, he has been below the "radar" for such a long time and what do you know .... like a genie come forth from a bottle, Voila!... spewing pablum like most of our clergy rather than Truth. Another careerist, modernist, Peronist and perhaps numerous more "ists" if one keeps listening. What a tremendous disappointment! Canada really is in a sad state of affairs.

Michael Dowd said...

"Marc Ouellet and the rest of our bishops and priests are filled with fear. They may agree that Amoris Laetitia is heretical and the Bishop of Rome is himself, a heretic. Yet, they sit and do nothing. They think they have faith. They have fear."

Yes, they fear the loss of worldly status and loss of income. And no, they do not fear God and their well defined responsibilities towards Him. There will be hell to pay for this attitude. Let us pray for them.

Ana Milan said...

It is because the CC is chockablock with effeminates & deviants that we have been lumbered with PF. Fr. Amorth said that the Vatican is possessed by the Devil, and who would doubt him. It is useless to imagine that mere humans can wrestle with them & win. It is beyond our capabilities. Satan has chosen & placed his own in the highest ranks of the CC & they act with impunity, trampling on God's Word at every opportunity knowing that only He can stop them. While our prayers are beginning to bring them out int the open so we know who they are &, hopefully, make some trouble for them, they have the numbers at the moment. We trust in God that He will not leave us - EVER - & in Our Lady's Triumph following upon the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, which she has assured us will be done, but late.

TLM said...

These heretics are not going to get off the ropes so easily. Telling us to move along 'ain't' going to cut it. They're dreaming if they think we are now buying their heresy. Thank the Dear Lord that He has given us the grace to withstand their constant 'mantra' of error in hopes that it will eventually become true to the 'masses'. It WILL NOT and we have now put on the armor of God and are fighting back. I think they've underestimated the faithful and are ignorant of the fact that WE have the truth, that WE have the Blessed Mother guiding us. (the TERROR of demons) They don't have a leg to stand on.

susan said...

Amen Vox!

And Deo gratias that we were spared what would have been the greater disaster of an Ouellet papacy; we would have all been sleepwalking further toward the cliff. bergoglio has been a cold, hard wake-up slap across the face, and as such, perhaps the sleeping giant has finally and truly been awakened, the first pebble of the oncoming avalanche (please God!) being the Correctio.

Keep up, and intensify the pressure. Hagan lio indeed (!)

Kathleen1031 said...

I have long said it is not the fact that we have a blatantly heretical pope that is so devastating. It is the fact that so many of our bishops and cardinals are weak-kneed willing and sycophantic heretics that is the real scandal, and is the one that does so much damage. Rome is for most Catholics, rather remote, and the pope a singular figure, but bishops and less so Cardinals are not, and now that the day has come when we see what we actually have, it's appalling, it's frightening, and it's nauseating. Not only does the emperor have no clothes, neither do these men! We see them, in their not only willingness, but dogged determination to explain away apostasy from our pope.
One can only conclude at this point, this goes far beyond sycophantic behavior. They ascribe to this. That is how they got where they are. This is their agenda as well, so they are all rotten, anyone who defends this mess at this point. They care not one iota about the sheep. They care about dismantling Catholicism and diminishing Christianity in the West. They are all destroyers, if they say and do nothing but what this shameful bishop has done. Shame on them all!

Brian said...

Vox
Just another episcopal invertebrate. His type, if it comes to pass, that the tide "really" begins to turn against Bergoglio, will change his tune real fast. These bishops are shape shifting chameleons. They will go with whoever is the winner. Doctrinal integrity be damned.

Dorota Mosiewicz-Patalas said...

Do you really think that they think they have faith?
I think that they think that the Catholic faith epitomizes backwardness and bigotry. I think that they think that they are doing us all a big favor by gradually (sneakily) opening our eyes to the truth they think they are in possession of - that man evolves as a co-creator of the universe, to realize that he is god and that there is no other god.

We are dealing with a well-coordinated effort to engineer society to make the transition into a one world religion smooth and easy. Doctrines of particular religions are mutually exclusive and clearly deem this project impossible, therefore they must be ridiculed as atavistic and harmful, preventing humanity from realization of its god potential. This can only be accomplished through anti-intellectualism and a "unity" based in the lowest common denominator. Such a denominator can only be flesh - base urges. They know very well that through dumbing us down, and constructing a world where virtue is judgmentalism and sin is tolerance soon to become unconditional love of everything but that which is in its way, they are able to create a really low common denominator, an equality in boundless stupidity and vice.

As the architects of this new heaven on earth are showing us, behind their fake smiles and hand-holding is a conniving beast. Their celebrations of peace and unity are void of any meaning. This unity is build on no foundations but lies.

These people know that they have no faith. And they really do think that they are becoming god but rejecting Jesus Christ.

Ben.quivenit@gmail.com said...

Dorota Mosiewicz-Patalas said:
"They think...that man evolves as a co-creator of the universe, to realize that he is god and that there is no other god."

What you have said here is central to what the Conciliar Religion believes. This type of auto-theistic thinking comes straight out of the Judaic Talmud, and neither the Talmud nor the novus ordo religion have any correspondence with Truth.

Peter Lamb said...

Progress is painfully slow, but it is being made. Hilary White has discovered the Ottaviani Intervention - after 49 years - but no matter, she has eventually discovered it. "Traditionalists" are now pretty well convinced bergoglio is an heretic. They are not quite sure that all the other conciliar popes were heretics also, but still at least one is being recognized as an heretic - progress again. We definitely have reason to hope that another penny will eventually drop and they will discover the doctrine that an excommunicant cannot become, or remain Pope - and thereafter progress will be rapid. The judeo-masonic council, popes and church will be made anathema, St. Paul will heave a great sigh of relief and Catholicism will be restored.

Johnno said...

How any of them have the utter gall to stand up there on podiums and utterly lie to our faces like that either means they are so incompetent and uninformed as to think stock PR denials work anymore , or it betrays their underlying narcissism that holds us all with such contempt that they fell no embarrassment to lie so blatantly. Go home Oullet, stay away from the wino!

Anonymous said...


☩JMJ☩

Saying that Amoris Laetitia is not a break with Tradition is like pretending that a quranic text is not a break with that Tradition either. Fideism is a plague among the clergy today. It is a pseudophilosophy that places the ultimate criterion for the recognition of truth in lawful authority in such a way as to detach it from reason, which it deems utterly powerless and useless. The First Vaticanum Council said that the spotlessness of the Faith of the Roman Church was proven by the facts (which is still intrinsically true today, despite the errors that are rampant due to systematically avoiding binding dogmatic definitions); but to the fideist, such facts cannot exist in the human mind. All that matters to him is that a text appears out of Rome, bearing a title like "encyclical" or "apostolic exhortation", and he receives it like an oracle from Heaven, denying to his human reason the power to recognise contradictions in the text with previous texts.

Behold the disasters of having departed from Saint Thomas Aquinas! Even the law of non-contradiction is not applied by those who are influenced by the Vaticanum II revolution. As it was done with freemasonic texts like Dignitatis Humanae, so it is done today with Amoris Laetitia.

The post-conciliar time period that began with the Council is ending, though, as those who know history will be able to discern in the manifold signs that can be observed in the Catholic world. The status quo continues to crumble, and we are obviously in a typical transitional phase right now between an ending time period and a beginning one. Seeing this pattern in history books, it is amazing to actually live through one, as it gives experience of how the workings of Divine Providence render the plans of groups and persons futile, and of how creatures end up bringing about, whether consciously or not, what His Divine Majesty has planned.

The days through which we walk at present are historic.

Everyday For Life Canada said...

The CCCB is sadly an irrelevant organization to the majority of the Canadian faithful in the pews. Who are they? would be the most common response. Thank God for that!

Peter Lamb said...

Dear Anonymous @ 7:42pm, Thank you for your brilliant comment. Fideism is just as rampant a plague amongst the laity. Hence the stubborn and dogged refusal to submit to the teaching of Vatican I, Popes, Saints, Doctors of the Church and theologians that an heretic cannot become, or remain Pope, due to infraction of the Divine law by commission of the sin of public heresy.

Michael Dowd said...

Peter Lamb is correct. "Progress is painfully slow, but it is being made."
Yes, we need to see what is happening realistically. God has not abandoned us. Thanks Peter. You have been at this (the Church's devilish miasma of heresy) much longer than most of us so you have a better eye concerning progress.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing "alarmist" about the encouragment of adultery, divorce, and abuse/criminality which has long been integral to Catholic pastoral practices, including confession, and the tribunal /annulment complex for numerous decades.

These aberrations are demonstrated facts.

A.L. merely implies/winks/coyly embraces what has long been practiced but mostly "publically closeted" within clerical/canonical practices, effectively but behind the scenes, yet with no recourse against it available to the intended/destroyed victims.

The Catholic Church is a thoroughly evil and corrupt institution, at least in my adult lifetime, and via decades of personal heartbreaking experiences in my 63 years.

I have never expected perfection. But, there is no honesty, concern or basic interest in truth or fairplay remaining among the clergy, except incidentally and rarely.


Karl

TLM said...

Just when you think this travesty called Bergoglio CANNOT get any worse............it does.


https://onepeterfive.com/popes-new-book-features-preface-by-lgbt-gender-theory-activist/

Anonymous said...

http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2017/09/can-they-do-that-abomination-of-non.html?m=1

Anonymous said...


Peter Lamb said: "Dear Anonymous @ 7:42pm, Thank you for your brilliant comment. Fideism is just as rampant a plague amongst the laity. Hence the stubborn and dogged refusal to submit to the teaching of Vatican I, Popes, Saints, Doctors of the Church and theologians that an heretic cannot become, or remain Pope, due to infraction of the Divine law by commission of the sin of public heresy."


Greetings, Peter Lamb.

I was the "Anonymous" to whom you responded. I forgot to sign the comment.

I disagree that Pope Francis is not a valid pope, since only formal heretics are barred from the Petrine Office by divine law, whereas Francis is only materially heretical. He would become formally heretical if he would be declared as such after having spurned two admonitions by the Church, which of course has not yet happened. Should he be lawfully declared haereticus formalis, he would on that moment lose the Supreme Pontificate, as Saint Bellarmine taught, before any explicit declaration of sedisvacancy.

Since the Catholic Church is a visible society, this procedure towards effecting a papal sedisvacancy is required to maintain a necessary degree of order within the Church. Were it not required, then no one could tell the exact moment upon which the Roman Pontiff would lose his sovereign episcopal authority, while the identity of the Vicar of Christ is in fact of the utmost importance to the Church.

Also, the Ecclesia Docens in toto publically recognises Francis as Supreme Pontiff; and therefore his pontificate is a dogmatic fact, for it is impossible that the whole formal episcopal corpus would be united to a false head.

Louis Cardinal Billot on the subject: "Permittere quoque potest ut de legitimitate unius vel alterius electi exoriatur dubium. Permittere autem non potest ut Ecclesia tota eum admittat pontificem qui verus et legitimus non sit. Ex quo igitur receptus est, et Ecclesiae coniunctus ut corpori caput, non est amplius movenda quaestio de possibili vitio electionis vel defectu cuiuscumque conditionis ad legitimitatem necessariae, quia praedicta Ecclesiae adhaesio omne vitium electionis radicitus sanat, et exsistentiam omnium requisitarum conditionum infallibiliter ostendit. Et hoc sit obiter dictum contra eos qui certa tentamina schismatica tempore Alexandri VI facta hoc nomine cohonestare volunt, quod ab eo fiebant qui de haereticitate Alexandri certissimas probationes in Concilio generali revelandas habere se dictitabat. At vero, ut aliae nunc rationes omittantur quibus opinio ista facile posset confutari, haec una sufficit: Constat nempe quod tempore quo Savonarola suas ad principes litteras scribebat, tota christianitas Alexandro adhaerebat et obediebat tanquam vero pontifici. Ergo eo ipso, Alexander non erat pontifex falsus, sed legitimus. Ergo non erat haereticus, ea saltem haereticitate quae tollendo rationem membri Ecclesiae, pontificia potestate vel qualibet alia ordinaria iurisdictione ex natura rei consequenter privat." [De Ecclesia Christi, Quaestio XIV - De Romano Pontifice, Thesis XXIX, §3.]



Benjamin Van Dyck.


Peter Lamb said...

Dear Benjamin, Please excuse my late response - something cropped up.

"I disagree that Pope Francis is not a valid pope, since only formal heretics are barred from the Petrine Office by divine law, whereas Francis is only materially heretical. He would become formally heretical if he would be declared as such after having spurned two admonitions by the Church, which of course has not yet happened. Should he be lawfully declared haereticus formalis, he would on that moment lose the Supreme Pontificate ..."

1. Here is our first problem - confusion re technical terminology.
I understand "material heresy", as heresy spoken in ignorance of the fact that heresy is being spoken. A material heretic is guiltless of sin.
"Occult heresy" is heresy kept secret to the heretic himself.
"Public/notorius/manifest/formal heresy", (all terms denote the same thing), is heresy divulged to another, or many.

You ascribe a completely different meaning to the terms "material" and "formal" heresy, reducing them to terms of canon law. If the accused, (a veritable heretic), is awaiting trial, he is a "material" heretic and when found guilty, he becomes a "formal" heretic.

This confusion stems from a failure to differentiate between the SIN of heresy against DIVINE law and the CRIME of heresy against the CANON law.

Authority comes from God. God revokes His authority from an heretical pope automatically and WITHOUT ANY DECLARATION being necessary, upon infraction of the DIVINE law.

Here are my authorities:
Saint Robert Bellarmine: "The fifth opinion therefore is the true one. A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just asThe fifth opinion therefore is the true one. A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction. (De Romano Pontifice. II.30. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction. (De Romano Pontifice. II.30.)

Peter Lamb said...

(Note: St. Robert says " ... he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. WHEREFORE, he can be judged and punished by the Church." This is most important! The Pope is SOVERIGN and is judged by no man. Only GOD judges a Pope. No Council, or Cardinals, or anybody else may judge the supreme law giver. It is ONLY BECAUSE HE IS ALREADY JUDGED AND DEPOSED BY GOD FOR THE SIN OF HERESY AND IS NO LONGER POPE, that the Cardinals, i.e. men, may judge him and if found guilty of the CRIME of heresy against CANON law depose him for purpses of GOOD CHURCH GOVERNANCE, as you have stated very well indeed:
"Since the Catholic Church is a visible society, this procedure towards effecting a papal sedisvacancy is required to maintain a necessary degree of order within the Church. Were it not required, then no one could tell the exact moment upon which the Roman Pontiff would lose his sovereign episcopal authority, while the identity of the Vicar of Christ is in fact of the utmost importance to the Church. ")

Vatican I: "The topic of a pope becoming a heretic was addressed at the First Vatican Council by Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, Ohio: “The question was also raised by a Cardinal, ‘What is to be done with the Pope if he becomes a heretic?’ It was answered that there has never been such a case; the Council of Bishops could depose him for heresy, for FROM THE MOMENT HE BECOMES A HERETIC he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be Pope, BEING DEPOSED BY GOD HIMSELF.(The New Princeton Review, Volume 42 p. 648, also The Life and Life-work of Pope Leo XIII. By James Joseph McGovern p. 241.)

The Papal Bull Cum ex apostolatus officio of Pope Paul IV teaches that: if anyone was a heretic before the Papal election, he could not be a valid pope, even if he is elected unanimously by the Cardinals.
Canon 188.4 (1917 Code of Canon Law) teachers that : if a cleric (pope, bishop, etc.) becomes a heretic, he loses his office WITHOUT ANY DECLARATIONby operation of law.

St. Alphonsus Liguori: – “If ever a Pope, as a private person, should
fall into heresy, he should at once fall from the Pontificate. If,
however, God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and
contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the
apostolic chair would be vacant.”

Peter Lamb said...

“Given, therefore, the hypothesis of a pope who would become notoriously heretical, one must concede without hesitation that he would by that very fact lose the pontifical power, insofar as, having become an unbeliever, he would by his own will becast outside the body of the Church.” (Billot — De Ecclesia, 1927.)
"The “pertinacity” that must be present for the sin of heresy “does not of necessity include long obstinacy by the heretic and warnings from the Church. A condition for the sin of heresy is one thing; a condition for the canonical crime of heresy, punishable by canon laws, is another... Because the act of heresy is an erroneous judgment of intelligence to commit the sin of heresy it suffices to knowingly and willingly express this erroneous judgment in opposition to the Church’s magisterium. From the moment that one sufficiently knows the existence of the rule of the faith in the Church and that, on any point whatsoever, for whatever motive and in whatever form, one refuses to submit to it, formal heresy is complete.” (“Héresie, Héretique,” Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique [Paris: Letouzey 1913–1950] 6:2222)
For brevity, I am not going to repeat, as I have often done on this blog, the long list of Popes, Saints, Doctors and theologians who concur.
I submit, dear Benjamin that like Fr. Boulet, you confuse generic terms applied to heresy before the 1917 Code of Canon Law (manifest, notorious, public, etc.) with the more specific meanings these terms were given after the 1917 Code. Fr. Boulet, like so many other anti-sedevacantist controversialists, seems to think it is the second aspect of heresy — heresy as a crime against canon law — that renders a public heretic incapable of becoming a true pope or that automatically strips him of his office if he falls into heresy after has already been elected to it. Consequently, Fr. Boulet quotes at great length criteria from the Code of Canon Law that are used to determine when a crime is imputable, public, notorious, pertinacious, etc. Any “heresies” of the post-Conciliar popes, he maintains, do not meet these canonical standards, so (he concludes) there is nothing to the sedevacantist case. But all this is barking up the wrong tree. It is not heresy in the second sense (crime against canon law), but heresy in the first sense (a sin against divine law) that prevents a public heretic from becoming or remaining pope. This is clear from the teaching of pre-Vatican II canonists like Coronata:

Peter Lamb said...

“III. Appointment to the office of the Primacy [i.e. papacy]. 1° What is required by divine law for this appointment: … Also required for validity is that the appointment be of a member of the Church. Heretics and apostates (at least public ones) are therefore excluded.”…

“2° Loss of office of the Roman Pontiff. This can occur in various ways: … c) Notorious heresy. …“If indeed such a situation would happen, he [the Roman Pontiff] would, by divine law, fall from office without any sentence, indeed, without even a declaratory one.” (Institutiones Iuris Canonici [Rome: Marietti 1950] 1:312, 316. My emphasis.)

Divine law removes the heretical pope. One need not therefore look to all the criteria laid down for crimes against canon law. To attempt to do so in the case of a pope, moreover, is to commit a “category error” — to ascribe to something a property it could not possibly have. A pope, as Supreme Legislator, is above canon law, and therefore cannot commit a crime against it, so no evil act he commits can be properly called a “crime.” It can only be called a sin, because he is subject to the divine law alone." ( http://www.fathercekada.com/2007/10/10/a-pope-as-a-manifest-or-public-heretic/)

Your statement: "Also, the Ecclesia Docens in toto publically recognises Francis as Supreme Pontiff; and therefore his pontificate is a dogmatic fact ..." is categorically refuted by Pope Paul IV in Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio:

"6. In addition, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine, decree and define:] that if ever at any time ... even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:

(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration,or obedience ACCORDED TO SUCH BY ALL, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;

Peter Lamb said...

(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way;

(iv) ... no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted either in the spiritual or the temporal domain;

(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;

(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and WITHOUT NEED OF FURTHER DECLARATION, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power.

Your statement that " it is impossible that the whole formal episcopal corpus would be united to a false head ", is perfectly correct! The Catholic Church is NOT united to anti-pope bergoglio, only those who would falsely and contrary to Catholic doctrine, recognize an heretic as Pope are!

Irenaeus said...

Pope Francis is not a heretic. We cannot call him one; we do not have that right. There have been bad popes before (such as the anti-popes at Avignon, and those popes who've had illegitimate children and hidden mistresses), and there will be again. Such is human nature. We have to accept there will be strong and weak popes in our faith. This, too, is human nature.

In Matthew 16, Jesus says this to Simon, the broken man who would become our first pope, "And I tell thee this in my turn, that thou art Peter, and it is upon this rock that I shall build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;..." (Knox Version of the Holy Bible)

Jesus knew all of history - all that came, what was going on as He lived on Earth, and what would come after He went back to His Father - He IS God, after all. He knew what His Bride would go through in the centuries to come. Yet He gave the keys to Peter anyway. What does that tell us? Jesus knew what He was doing, what a risk that would be ... but we are greater than we know in God's eyes, a greatness we will only know when the end of time is nigh.

While we are free to cast our eyes on what our pontiff is doing and judge his public actions, as we DO have free will, we cannot ever question the Holy Ghost's workings. We don't know what He does, nor why. To borrow a phrase from Homer, that mist shrouds our eyes. He will never abandon us. Never has.

This isn't directed toward anyone in particular. I am tired of this debate on Vox's wall whenever the Pope comes up. We are going in circles. Scripture is our best answer for this debate, as it is the foundation of everything dear to our faith. I turned to it to answer my questions. I pray it will hold the same answers for you as it did for me.

Pax,

Irenaeus